E-text prepared by the Online Distributed Proofreading Team
()
from page images generously made available by
Internet Archive
(http://archive.org)

JUNIUS BRUTUS BOOTH.

CURIOSITIES OF THE
AMERICAN STAGE

BY
LAURENCE HUTTON
AUTHOR OF “PLAYS AND PLAYERS” ETC., ETC.

ILLUSTRATED

NEW YORK
HARPER & BROTHERS, FRANKLIN SQUARE
1891

Copyright, 1890, by Harper & Brothers.

All rights reserved.

TO
BRANDER MATTHEWS
THESE

[Pg xi]

THE ARGUMENT.

This book, as its name implies, is a series of chapters from the annals ofthe American Theatre; and it considers Plays and Players more particularlyin their less familiar aspects. It does not pretend to be critical; andthe greatest care has been taken to verify all the facts it contains (manyof them here presented for the first time), in order that it may appeal tothe small but select band of specialists known as Dramatic Collectors, aswell as to those influential members of the community who are glad to callthemselves Old Play-goers.

The chapters upon “The American Stage Negro,” upon “The AmericanBurlesque,” and upon a “A Century of American Hamlets,” appearedoriginally in Harper’s Magazine; the others have been printed, in part, inother periodicals, but as now published they have all been rewritten,elaborated, and extended.

The portraits with which the volume is enriched[Pg xii] are in many instancesvery rare, and some of them, never engraved before, have been preparedespecially for this work. They are from the collections of Mr. J. H. V.Arnold, Dr. B. E. Martin, Mr. Thomas J. McKee, Mr. C. C. Moreau, Mr. EvartJansen Wendell, and The Players, to all of whom the author here expresseshis sincere thanks.

A double Index—personal as well as local—makes the book easily availablefor reference; and it will lend itself readily to extra illustration. Itis intended to instruct as well as to entertain.

Laurence Hutton.

The Players, 1890.

[Pg xiii]

DRAMATIS PERSO